Are You Team Rousey? Be Careful Who You Congratulate

Amazing story from Shaun Al-Shatti at MMAFighting.com about Ronda lighting Paige VanZant up at a sponsor event. Must have been VanZant saying something terrible directly to Ronda, right?

Wrong.

The story came from Miesha Tates’s recent visit to The Joe Rogan Experience and according to Tate, “[Ronda] was like, ‘you congratulated Holly Holm for beating me, so f*ck you, you f*cking fair-weather 115-pound…’,” and on and on. Ronda continued to berate VanZant for having congratulated Holly for her victory over Ronda, which was something that obviously pissed off Rousey to the point of F-Bombs in the presence of one of the UFC’s major sponsors.

Sounds like VanZant had wanted to get a photo with Rousey, at which point, the sponsor’s representatives said something to the effect of ‘umm, not a good idea.’ For what it’s worth, I respect VanZant for responding to Rousey’s anger (as told by Miesha Tate): “‘I’m allowed to congratulate whoever I want. I congratulated Rose Namajunas when she beat me. I was like, you know, you whooped my ass. That was a badass performance. I just simply told Holly congratulations once. It wasn’t anything anti-Ronda.'”

I’ve respected Ronda in the ring for the amazing performances she’s given to the MMA world. But as a relative newcomer to the sport, I see that Ronda is a mixed bag of amazing fighting skill and personal dramas that, when mixed together, erupt pretty violently. Finally, I hope that Rousey gets her professional/MMA life back on track, as she is young and obviously has great potential. As to her personal life, I don’t know much about it, but I do hope that she chooses to fight inside the ring rather than media and sponsor engagements.